Time for a trade?

Leafs celebrating Wednesday night's win over the Oilers in OT

After looking at a Toronto Star poll showing that 81% of fans think the Leafs need to make a trade before the deadline; I remembered how big of a question this is. Usually, I’m not someone who likes trades in February, taking a player who’s been around all season, and exchanging him for someone new and unfamiliar to the team’s chemistry.

But of course, Toronto has only one victory in their last five, and is only one point ahead of Washington for 8^th place, and only two points ahead of 10^th place Winnipeg. This is pressure time, and not trading could mean a continued slide for the Maple Leafs, and ultimately not making the playoffs for the seventh season in a row. With that, after hearing the Mikhail Grabovski trade rumors, I think it’s absolutely a bad idea to get rid of Grabovski. He’s #3 this season in goal-scoring for Toronto, and even though he would be a free agent this summer, it’s hard to replace him now with that playoff spot looming in the distance. Who says you can't re-sign him anyway?

Kulemin, the Leaf's active leader in games played for Toronto. He has 5 goals and 18 assists on the season.

As hard as it is for me to say, I think if any Leaf HAS TO get traded, it should be Nikolai Kulemin. There are only 3 players left on the Leafs roster from fall 2008, Grabovski, Schenn, and Kulemin; all of whom have spent their entire tenure under head coach Ron Wilson. (Fun fact, Kulemin leads active Leafs in games played, with 291) From what I’ve seen recently, Kulemin hasn’t been making the biggest impact, especially compared to last season. Whereas Kulemin had 30 goals last season, he currently sits at 5 for this season. And with the Leafs’ season 70% done, Kulemin would have 7 goals if he continues his pace until April. A drop of 23 goals? Now that’s something to be concerned about.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Kulemin has been essential to Toronto in the post-Sundin era, and one of the few who has actually stuck around. He is a very clean player, and still manages to score some good goals, and set up some too. (He also one of my favorite Leafs)But with what could be considered underperforming, if anyone’s getting the boot, Kulemin should be the one to go. That being said, I would rather just see everyone step up their game and surge towards a playoff spot, therefore there wouldn’t be inevitable trade talk…Let’s see how the Leafs fair against the Canucks…

Walking: A College Student's Favorite Sport

The "C+ House", one of several notable landmarks north of CMU's campus that I pass by on walks or bike rides

Yep, pretty much. We all know the day when you have a class at one end of campus, then have to bustle down to the other end for your next one. Throughout most of the year up at Central, I usually have my bike outside; with the snow, wet roads, etc. it’s been up in my room against the wall. Just like last year when it wasn’t even up at school, and neither was my car, I got accustomed to walking everywhere, and getting the occasional ride from someone who actually had a car. It’s always the same band jacket, scarf, and moose mitts that don’t match anything else; and I’m off from the north end of campus, usually walking half a mile to get to class. (For CMU locals, Robinson Hall to Moore/the Music Building is a trip I make daily) Compared to racing to class on bike in 3 minutes during good weather, I think I actually get better exercise when I walk and take 10 minutes.

I made sure to total up the miles I walked today, because it might have been the most I’ve walked in one day in a longgg time…

-1 mile-Walking to the radio station and back this morning

-0.8 miles- Walking to class and back

-3.2 miles- A walk up through Millpond Park and downtown Mount Pleasant

-1.7 miles- Walking to McGuirk Arena to see a women’s basketball game with Kappa Kappa Psi brothers, and back to my room

So today I walked 6.7 miles. I know for a fact that I have done that before, back at the Philmont Scout Ranch with Boy Scouts in summer 2006, in Colfax County, New Mexico. (One of the best trips I ever took) We probably walked at least that distance everyday while hiking there, one day might have even been 11 miles!

But of course, that was 2006. I certainly haven’t reached the 6-mile mark very often since that trip, one other rare occasion was on campus in fall 2010, which involved walking to the football stadium with a friend, at the far end of campus; especially far from Robinson.

I timed my longer walk today, getting back after an hour. So I guess my normal walking speed is around 3.2mph. On monday I speed-walked to the other end of campus, 0.91 miles in 12 minutes. So that's 4.55mph, not bad!

My first semester at CMU had many down times due to my light class load. On finals week I didn’t have my first final until Thursday, leaving me quite bored for the first 3 days, going on a pretty good walk every day. I have to say, the neighborhood north of campus is always nice to stroll through.

The Great Facebook Purge

My profile pic, from Uncle John's Cider Mill in St. Johns, MI. I usually cycle through profile pictures pretty quick, but this one is special...

I think it’s about that time when everyone has realized how much social media has changed our lives, more importantly, how much of our lives we spend indulged in it. My mom never let me get a MySpace when they were still a massive thing back in 2006/2007, but finally in summer 2008, I took the advice of one of my best friends, and made a Facebook. I had hardly ever heard of it, only the stuff about how it was banned in work environments. Pretty soon I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and so did everyone else when they first joined…..

And we come to present day. I can’t imagine what I would do on the internet without Facebook. It takes up so much of my internet browsing, and I’ve been sick of it for a while now. It’s actually quite sad, there was one girl in particular that I know at CMU that for the longest time didn’t have a Facebook profile. Sure enough, I just found her on there about a week ago. Wow…I guess EVERYBODY I know has a facebook.

Recently I had over 500 friends on there, and believe me, I know that many have more. (Over 1,000) I decided to once and for all actually scroll through my ENTIRE list of friends of the past 3.5 years, and get rid of anybody that: 1)I didn’t talk to anymore, 2)Was someone I barely knew in high school and now was living a life somewhere else, 3)People that posted things that I had no interest in. And so it began, I turned on some China Crisis, sat down, and went to work.

It took about 5 different sittings to get through the whole thing, deleting football jocks, others who were long gone, anyone who didn’t have much relevance to me anymore. (I couldn’t believe how long it took just to get through the A’s, B’s, and C’s!) I started in the morning at 525 friends. With all that effort throughout the day to “purge” my profile, I had shaved it down to 345. 35% of friends wiped off my profile. *phew*, that took a while…I was more disappointed that I didn’t get rid of more. That still leaves me with 345 people that I know who I still talk to or see on a regular basis, I guess…

So what did I learn? I guess it’s harder to delete people than I really thought, or I just know that many people. (And knowing 345 people at least sort of well is interesting to fathom) The most interesting thing to happen after the purge? Someone re-requested me as a friend, and then posted on my wall, asking why I deleted her.

Now the intriguing part is not that she was confused why I deleted her, it was the fact that ONE person cared. One person out of 200+ would be disappointed to not get my humorous status updates, or the ones about Canada, or the links to my blog posts on here. (And I bet nobody else reads this besides those people)

So there’s an exercise for everyone to do on Facebook. Unfriend almost everybody, and see who re-friend requests you soon afterwards. Out of the people that aren’t close acquaintances or friends, those people matter too…Either way, I would love to dump my Facebook one of these days. Twitter’s where it’s at! And of course, this blog is cooler than both of them.

Proving they're legit

Well three months ago I said it was time for the Leafs to prove if they’re legitimately a threat to making the playoffs for the first time since 2004. Amazingly enough, their chances haven’t evaporated at this point; they’re in 7^th place right now! YEAH! Go Leafs!

James Reimer picking up his 10th win on the season against Edmonton, being congratulated by Phil Kessel.

Toronto did great on Monday night against Edmonton, leaving the Oilers even farther out of the western conference playoff race they’ve been out of for weeks. (Certainly a matchup I always like, Leafs & Oilers, basically my two favorite teams) A great 6-3 win for the Leafs against the Oilers, but sadly they had to play another game just the night after…1,500 kilometers away.

The fatigue really showed. Shots against Winnipeg were 29-18 in favor of the Jets as they won the game 2-1. A high note though was Phil Kessel’s 30^th goal, coming in the first period, the Leafs’ lone goal in the game. There was also a fight in the 3^rd, where Joey Crabb basically made a fool of himself by getting thrown down to the ice by Johnny Oduya. This picture pretty much describes the game for the Leafs…

Either way, Toronto really could’ve capitalized on the Jets game last night. They would’ve jumped to 64 points, and put a bigger gap in front of the 9^th and 10^th place SE division teams. (Currently Florida with 59 points, and now Winnipeg with 56) With Ottawa still at 61, handing a loss to the Jets last night would’ve really been catastrophic to their drive to a playoff appearance. Now Winnipeg is still hanging on, still 5 points out of the 8^th spot. Now the Leafs have two pivotal games ahead of them, the Flyers tomorrow night, then the Canadiens on HNIC, Saturday at 7pm, heavily anticipated for Mats Sundin’s number 13 getting “honoured”… I really wish they’d just retire it, I don’t want anyone else to don a #13 for the Leafs, ever. Nobody beats Mats. I have enough trouble getting over the fact that Lombardi wears #15, only months after the well-remembered Tomas Kaberle was traded away.

Regardless, the Leafs have proved after 3 months that they are legit. I mean, they even got around to beating Detroit last month, now that was an excellent game. If Reimer and Gustavsson continue to play well, and Kessel & Lupul continue their scoring ways, the Maple Leafs will be in the playoffs. Get excited.

It's been a while

Sooooo it's been a while...about a month and a half to be exact. Yep, haven't posted anything on here since December, when Milbury got booted off NBC. Sorry about the massive gap, I got busy playing Minecraft and being overloaded with CMU things. Don't worry, the next posts on here are coming soon! (I mean, don't think that many people could be upset about the hiatus, how many people even read this?)
More Maple Leafs posts, CMU posts, Kappa Kappa Psi posts, and other stuff coming soon to an internet browser near you! (BETTER NOT be IE, at least be better than I am with-to-date technology!)